Johan Santana kept the Mets Opening Day beautiful  .....and the program reflected a refreshing optimism        Photo by Mike Segar - Reuters                                                    Photo by Chris McGrath- Getty

It’s 11 PM and there’re 11 minutes left in the Duke-Butler game.  Switching to baseball, the Angels are leading the Twins and Tim Lincecum and the Giants just finished beating a mostly hapless Houston team.  This afternoon, I watched our Metsies thrash the Marlins for still another Opening Day win.

I’m getting worn out, even if I am rather happy about it.

Leaving this Duke game for a while, let me just reflect on the Mets opener, a 7-1 easy win, a Santana gem for 6 innings, a coming out party for David Wright and Jason Bay, a reaffirmation that this Mets team can be awfully good after all.  When Wright in his first at-bat knocked one right over the wall in right, I thought I’d just die.

We got some first looks at Rod Barajas as a Met, we saw Alex Cora leading off, and we saw Mike Jacobs batting cleanup.  We saw Gary Matthews in centerfield and getting lots of chances on the day.  And we saw what was probably the most beautiful day to ever break on an April 5^th in New York/New Jersey, made all the better, of course, by the Mets win, and not just the fact that they won, but the manner in which they did it.

I had been a little concerned that Santana would have some trouble in his first start after the surgery.  He showed me early on that any concern was needless.  The fastball was fast, the changeup was still there, and, lo and behold, there was a nice little slider to befuddle those big Marlin bats.

By the top of the second inning, the game was over, for all intents and purposes.  Of course, we didn’t know it at the time.  But that Mets bottom of the first showed those Fish that the Mets were taking this opener very seriously indeed.  And, as much as I was happy for Wright, I was even happier for Luis Castillo, who legged out what could very easily have been a double play.  So, instead of Wright batting with two outs and none on, there was Luis on first with just one out.  And Wright made it pay off.

(There’re now 49 seconds left in the basketball final and Duke is still hanging on with a one-point lead and the ball).  Now they miss the shot and the ball bounces off Zoubek’s foot.  Butler has now taken the clock down to 14 seconds and taken a timeout.  Still another nail-biter for the NCAA. They’re back now and the cameras are all focused on Hayward.  Oh well, Duke wins, I lose another bracket).

Now back to the Angels-Twins game and good ol’ former Yankee Hideki Matsui drives in the go-ahead run for the Angels with a single to right.  It looks like Godzilla is still open for business.  I find myself wondering what Johnny Damon did today.  Upon checking, he went 2 for 5 with 2 runs scored and 2 ribbies.  He was pretty much the brightest light for the Tigers in their win over the Royals. 

As good as Granderson looked in the Yankees loss to the Red Sox last night, it’s hard to believe that he and that big lug Nick Johnson will make up for the loss of clutch hitters like Damon and Matsui.  I couldn’t be happier about it either.

But back to the Mets,  I hadn’t mentioned Jeff Francoeur earlier.  He looked good too, knocking in 2 rbi’s on the day.  Come to think of it, I can’t think of any Mets that looked bad.  Even the relief corps looked good, Fernando Nieve turning in two scoreless innings and K-Rod finishing up the same way as he always does; that is to say he was friggin’ great.

But there will be 161 more games, the first of which for our heroes begins Wednesday against these Marlins again, with John Maine going up against Ricky Nolasco.  Manuel has Maine going as his Number Two if only because Mike Pelfrey gets banged around regularly against the Marlins.  I wish I could say something nice here.  I have absolutely no faith in John Maine.  I’ve seen enough.

Just as this Mets team seems to feed off the intensity of a guy such as Santana, they also seem to absorb the flightiness of Maine.  Maine will strike out a couple of guys and then just throw four straight balls, let the guy steal second, and just totally lose focus.  I expect no better on Wednesday.  Meanwhile, his opponent Ricky Nolasco has all the intensity of Johan Santana with about ½ the talent, which, against John Maine, should be more than enough.

I hope I’m wrong.  I’ll be so happy if he makes me eat my harsh words over and over again for the entire season.  While Manuel worries about the bullpen, I’m more concerned with the inconsistency of these Mets starters.  A bigger bunch of flakes is not to be found on this planet. (And probably the other planets as well but I have no way of checking).

Maine, Pelfrey, Perez….every series looks to be an adventure.  Nobody could predict what they’ll do.  Thankfully, all their performances aren’t bad, just most of them.  And, more often than not, if they do manage to escape the first few innings unscathed, they will have thrown enough pitches to get taken out by the sixth inning anyway, putting that much additional burden on the relievers.

Aargh, but why get upset now?  It’s been a beautiful day, following a beautiful night of the Yankees losing to their chief rivals.  It was so nice to see Jorge lose one for them.  As good a hitter as he is, he more than makes up for it with his pitch selection and ridiculous fielding.  I’m so happy he’s a Yankee.  I just wish poor Joba, the only Yankee I like, has to pitch to him.

I’ll start worrying Wednesday morning.  Until then, I’ll watch replays of Mark Buehrle’s play.

 

 

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